This invention relates to a concentrating and deodorizing method and apparatus for ruminant waste effluent.
While the method and apparatus of the present invention have many applications in the separation of waste solids from liquids, its utility in connection with the separation of dairy cow manure from wash water will be described.
In a typical dairy farm operation, a thousand milk cows will excrete an average of 18 pounds of waste product each per day. This waste is washed out of the barns into a series of settling pits which flow into lagoons. This is a very inefficient system, since the waste product does not settle very fast and most of it ends up in the lagoons, where it forms hard, crusty, odorous, difficult to handle material. The lagoons are dredged periodically at a great expense to the farmers and pollution occurs when rain causes the lagoons to spill over onto the surrounding countryside. There has been no attractive solution to this problem for many years.
An objective of the present invention has been to deal with the problem of effluent from the dairy farms.
Another objective of the invention has been to provide a method and apparatus for concentrating ruminant waste products.
Another objective of the invention had been to provide a method and apparatus for deodorizing ruminant waste products.
The objects of the invention are achieved by utilizing a hydrocyclone process.
The hydrocyclone is a cone shaped device that receives liquid, usually under pressure from a pump, on a tangent to the inside wall, which causes the liquid to spin, accelerating the force of gravity on the solids. Liquid, essentially free of solids exits out the top of the hydrocyclone. The concentrated solids exit out of the bottom of the hydrocyclone. The substantially clean water may be discharged or reused for washing. The solids may be collected in an area to allow excess water to drain off.
Because of the vortex generated by the hydrocyclone as the liquid is spinning in it, an area of low pressure develops along the central axis of the device, which causes air to be sucked up into it. As this air comes into intimate contact with bacteria in the waste product, most of the bacteria are destroyed, thus eliminating the source of much of the odor associated with these waste products.
The concentrated, dewatered deodorized solids can now be readily disposed of, or with further processing, be pelletized for use as fertilizer.